The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is working hard to eliminate drug insecurity in the country, Director General of the agency, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye has said.

She stated this yesterday in Abuja during a media briefing organised by the agency to mark its 25th year anniversary.

She said the agency’ s first DG, Dr. Dora Akunyili fought a good fight against substandard medicines in Nigeria, and that the agency was laying a foundation that would enable it exist for many decades to come without anyone having ability to destroy it.

The NAFDAC boss said the agency was also working towards ensuring that local manufacturers sell their products globally.

“We are working towards improving local manufacturing to make sure we don’t have drug insecurity. We are changing so many policies. We are doing things to position NAFDAC as a competitive agency globally. Our Gross Domestic Product GDP when it comes to pharmaceutical manufacturing is low. Our goal is to improve the GDP, “she said.

Prof Adeyeye said the agency has improved in service delivery, saying that based on the current process, an application for food gets to the final stage within 90 days whether it is approved or not, while application for drugs takes120 days.

Once a company is recognised as a distinct entity upon its incorporation, in carrying out its function as a going concern, the majority of the members who command over 50 per cent of votes in the general meeting must be able to steer the course of the ship of the company in a direction they feel it should go.

Today, a number of reforms have been proposed by the Presidential Enabling Environment Council (PEBEC) to protect the rights and interest of minority investors against misuse of corporate assets by directors for their personal gain.

The reforms also cover the strength of shareholder rights, governance safeguards and corporate transparency requirements that reduce the risk of abuse.

Some experts, however said these initiatives can only materialize with passage of the Companies and Allied Matters (CAM) Bill 2018 into law.

The expansion of the provisions on minority protection in the CAM Bill, once it is passed, will ensure the expansion of the rights of shareholders, particularly the minority, and strengthen the extent of shareholders ownership and control of the company as well as strengthen corporate governance and enhance transparency.

The law as it stands today in the Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), allows the same person to be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the same private company. It also allows a general disclosure of the existence of conflict of interest, without specifics but when the CAM Bill is eventually passed into law, it will place restriction on the appointment of the same person as CEO and chairman of a private company and require full disclosure (with specifics) of conflict of interests and all facts in buyer-seller transactions.

Source: Daily trust

BPP Promotes Transparency In Public Procurement (This day pg. 30)

The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) yesterday said it will in the coming weeks, unveil price checker to promote transparency and ensure that prices of commonly procured goods through the agency are uniform.

Speaking yesterday during the ongoing first batch of 2019 procurement conversion training for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in Lagos, BPP Director-General, Mamman Ahmadu, said, the price checker is to ensure that across all government agencies, commonly procured goods like stationary, are bought at a price that is uniform, not likely the same, so as to discourage malpractices.

He said the agency is working very hard to digitize its operations, to reduce the level of human intervention in the public procurement process.

He said the ongoing procurement reforms has helped in preventing corruption in Nigeria adding that the BPP is taking the lead on the procurement reform process by developing the capacity for its workforce to implement the reforms using trainings.

“The reform is imperative for the purpose of good governance, which is the hallmark of any serious system. As it were, efficiency, transparency, accountability and value for money in the public procurement process can only be achieved through concerted, sustained and consistent effort of government at skill acquisition needed for the process,” he said.

In its latest round of interventions in the forex market, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) made interventions in the Retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) of the Foreign Exchange market totaling $268.60 million and CNY39.09 million.

Figures of the sales consummated on Friday revealed that the sums were injected to meet requests of customers in the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products and raw materials and machinery sectors.

The Bank’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, also confirmed that the sum of CNY39.09million was for payment of Renminbi-denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials.

Friday’s transaction was in addition to the $210 million injected into the Wholesale, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Invisibles segments of the market on Tuesday, March 19, 2019.

Mr. Okorafor expressed satisfaction with the performance and stability of the economy especially after the country’s 2019 general elections.

He attributed the level of stability to the CBN’s transparency in foreign exchange transactions and interventions aimed at the diversification of the economy.

The Naira exchanged at N360/$1 on Friday, March 22, 2019 in the Bureau De Change (BDC) segment of the market.

Source: Daily trust

NERC Insists Metering Still Discos’ Responsibility (This day pg. 8)

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) yesterday responded emphatically to the electricity distribution companies’ (Discos) claims that they were no longer responsible for providing meters to consumers under their networks, stating clearly that they had not been absolved of such responsibility.

The NERC also said the Discos failed to meet up with July 2018 timeline it approved for them to engage third-party meter vendors under the new Meter Asset Providers (MAP) scheme, adding that it was reviewing such slippages with a view to taking enforcement actions against them.
According to a statement sent to THISDAY last night in Abuja by NERC’s General Manager, Public Affairs, Dr. Usman Arabi, the commission said it was reviewing the MAP procurement report and would soon announce preferred bidders to participate in the scheme.
It also explained that it was desirous of ending estimated billing by Discos in the country, using the MAP scheme, and expected the Discos to support the target.

“The obligation to ensure that all electricity consumers are metered remains with the electricity distribution companies (Discos) under Meter Asset Provider (MAP) Regulations 2018. This is consistent with their respective licensing terms and conditions and Section 4 (1) of the said regulations that provides that, inter alia, “Distribution licensee is responsible for the achievement of metering targets as specified by the commission from time to time.

About MAN

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) was established in May, 1971 as a company limited by guarantee. The establishment of the Association was motivated by the desire to have a focal point of communication and consultation between industry on the one hand, and the government and general public on the other.
Hitherto, there was no institutional organ whose central focus was to give meaning to the interests, problems and aspirations of the manufacturing sector.
The establishment of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria was to provide a platform for the private sector to formulate and articulate policy suggestions that would be complementary to governments efforts at policy formulation... View More